


Stories We Tell

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Grandchildren, Historical References, LGBTQ Themes, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Story within a Story, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 10:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9543368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Korra and Asami babysit their grandchildren and tell them about their first date.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is loosely based off the movie Cloud Burst, there's this line that's along the lines of "If you got caught on a date with a woman in the '50s you had to make up a story even more outrageous to avoid problems with the police" and I started thinking about Korra and Asami and I saw some fan art and then this happened.  
> I tried to make it good for everyone, but also crushingly historically accurate so homophobia is an underlying theme. Still, it's a story that they're telling to their grandkids so it's all fairly light-hearted. Also at the end they dance.

“Thank you so much,” Misa says meaningfully, squeezing Asami’s hands “I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for seven years.”

Asami laughs “That’s what it was like with you, you know.”

“I’m so sorry,” Misa tells her, gripping her mother’s hand tighter “I couldn’t ask for a better mom.”

“I’m offended!” Korra calls as she walks into the foyer where Misa and Asami are standing with three children trailing behind her. Misa rolls her eyes and tells Korra that yes, she was a great mom too and she’s plenty thankful for her to have volunteered to babysit.

“It really isn’t a problem,” Korra assures her “It’s not like we’re doing anything. Ever.”

“Still, I’m grateful. Anyways, you know what to do right? Just feed them and get them to bed at a reasonable hour.” Misa says with a smile.

“Hmm… I’ll see what I can do. What time do you define as ‘reasonable’?” Korra asks, earning a swat from Asami who tells Misa not to worry, she’ll make sure the kids don’t stay up too late. With this, the children let out a collective moan and Korra shakes her head and winks at them.

Misa then thanks her moms once again and her children say goodbye to her before she goes outside to drive to the restaurant where her husband is already waiting for her. Once she’s gone Korra locks the door and turns around to face the kids with a wide smile on her face.

“So what do you guys want to do? I was thinking dinner and a movie or you can play with some of Asami’s old toys from the factory.”

The kids say that they want to play with Asami’s toys and the woman in question goes dead white. “I don’t really think they’re… safe for you guys to play with. Korra.”

“That’s ok,” the oldest one, Senna, says, “Mommy tells us to always be careful around dangerous objects!”

Korra and Asami both smile at this and, after a bit more discussion, it’s decided that they will all cook dinner together before watching a movie. In anticipation of the night Korra had picked up the ingredients for pizza and after preparing the ingredients all the kids make their own mini pizza’s which they are all strangely excited about, even though they end up looking and tasting the same.

As the pizza cooks Senna asks to see the photo album, mostly because she likes to look at pictures of her namesake, Korra’s mom, and while she and Korra look through it together Asami shows the other two kids, May and Emmet, how to build an electrical circuit. Once they get the current going and are able to power a set of mini lights the kids run around the house finding things that will expand the circuit and Asami takes a seat on the couch with Korra and Senna.

“Is that you?” Senna asks, pointing to a picture of Asami that was probably taken in the 70s. She was very obviously done up, although Asami can’t remember the occasion. 

“Yeah, it is. That was taken when I was about your mother’s age.”

“You were so pretty!” Senna exclaimed and Korra looks over at Asami saying, “She still is pretty, Senna.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean that,” Senna says. She’s getting to the age where she’s starting to understands what things people get offended about.

Asami laughs and ruffles Senna’s hair. “Don’t worry honey. Korra was also quite good-looking.”

With this piece of information in mind, Senna flips through the book, trying to find a picture of her other grandmother. While she can’t find a picture of Korra by herself there is one of her with two boys sitting at a bar and Senna asks who they are.

“That’s Mako, your biological grandpa and Bolin, his brother.”

Senna peers at the image “What does that mean?” 

“Well you see,” Asami says “Two women can’t have children and at the time it wasn’t legal for us to adopt so Korra and I asked Mako to help make your mom.”

Senna nods in understanding and turns to Korra “You were pretty, but not as pretty as Asami.”

Korra bursts into laughter at this as May and Emmet run back into the room with a collection of metallic objects, mostly forks and spoons, to add to the circuit. Asami kisses both Senna and Korra’s heads then gets up to help them put it together.

After a few more minutes the oven dings and Korra gets the food out of the oven, putting it on plates and bringing them to the table where everyone is already sitting. As they eat the kids talk about their days and Korra and Asami play footsie under the table, something they’ve been doing for about 60 years. When they are done May collects the dishes, sticking her tung out at Senna who wanted to do it and they go to the living room to pick out a movie.

It turns out none of them has seen the Princess Bride so Korra and Asami make them watch that. The kids all pile onto the couch while Korra and Asami curl up on a love seat across the room so they can talk about the movie while not spoiling it for the others. 

When the film is done Korra picks up Emmet, who has fallen asleep, and carries him to bed while Asami takes Senna and May to brush their teeth. After they’re all clean the two kids go into the guest bedroom where Emmet is asleep and crawl into the giant bed with him. Asami notices that Korra isn’t around and tells the kids that she’ll wait for her to return before turning off the light. 

Thankfully Korra isn’t long and she soon comes into the bedroom with warm milk for everyone. She hands cups to everyone, except for Emmet who’s cup she puts on the bedside table in case he wakes up. The kids sit up and everyone drinks their milk in silence until May asks someone to tell a story.

Korra smiles and looks over at Asami, then back at the kids. “Do you want me to tell you about my first date with Asami?”

Asami’s eyes widen and she whips her head around to glare at Korra. “That’s not appropriate!” she exclaims, making Senna and May plead for the story to be told.

“Come on ‘Sami, I’m a big girl!” May says and Korra places a hand on Asami’s shoulder. “Yeah, Asami,” she says “They’re mature. They’ll get it.”

Asami sighs in resignation and Korra takes a seat on the bed, ready to tell the story.

“So, your grandmother and I met in, what was it? ’57? ’58?”

“’58.” Asami supplies and Korra goes on. 

“That’s right, 1958. Asami inherited her dad’s factory, they used to make big machines that the army would use in war but since the company was passed to Asami from her dad she was looking for a different route for her company. This was actually really great because even though the big war, we call it world war two, was done there were a bunch of little wars that were being fought overseas that weren’t just at all. Asami knew this so she stopped manufacturing machines that the government would use to kill people and started making things like phones and cars.” As she says this Korra gives Asami a fond smile, but May and Senna aren’t happy.

“What does that have to do with it?” May asks.

“Nothing really. I’m just setting the tone for the story,” Korra said, her smile fading a bit “Anyways, Asami was making sure people didn’t die and I was studying public relations at a college while working odd jobs. We met at a bar where a lot of girls like us went-“

“-Girls like you?” Senna interrupted.

“Girls who are attracted to other girls,” Asami explains “Back then you weren’t allowed to date people who were the same gender as you.”

“Why?” Asks May.

Asami gives Korra a look and tries to explain “In the 1950s a lot of people were scared of this thing called communism, that’s why there were all those wars overseas. People were also really concerned about national security and thought that people like us were more likely to become communists and thus security threats.”

“Why?” May asks again.

“Because people were scared of what they didn’t know or understand.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how people are wired.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why!” Korra cuts in “Do you want to hear the story or not?”  
Senna and May nod.

“Right, ok. So Asami and I met at a bar. I never got the chance to talk to her because she was super popular, right ‘Sami?”

“Heh, not really,” Asami says, a small smile playing across her lips.

“She’s lying.” Korra states “All the girls wanted to get with Asami Sato.”

At this Asami elbows Korra in the ribs causing her to shriek and turn to the two girls who were looking confused. “I don’t know why I liked her so much, she turned out to be evil,” Korra says, earning herself another elbow in the ribs.

“Anyways,” Korra resumes once she’s recovered “I could never really talk to Asami because she almost always had someone on her arm. To add to this there used to be this divide, you were either very masculine or very feminine, you couldn’t be in-between. But I was. In-between. I couldn’t pick what role I fell into and both felt kinda uncomfortable for me. Not a lot of people went out with me because of this, a lot of people thought I was an undercover cop because I wasn’t conforming to the rules that all the others knew.

So most of the time I spent at bars was just spent admiring Asami from afar. At least, that’s what I did until Asami, with her amazing driving skills, ran into my best friend Mako with her motorcycle. Mako introduced us and I actually got a chance to talk to her.

After a while we became close and I managed to ask her out.”

At this point, Asami takes over. “Korra and I arranged a date and time, but we knew that we also had to be careful because if we were caught we could be thrown in prison, or at least be socially ostracised because more people would know.”

“Ostracised?” May cuts in.

“That’s when you’re left out of something,” Asami explains.

May nods and Korra starts to talk again “We knew that two girls seen out late at night would probably raise a few eyebrows so we came up with a story before hand. It was something along the lines of Asami being pregnant with my boyfriend’s baby and we had both dumped him and now we were trying to spend more time together to shove the fact that we didn’t like him anymore down his throat.

Once we made all the necessary plans I went to pick Asami up. She was wearing this red dress with a huge skirt and high heels. And do you want to know the first thing she said to me?

‘So I’m excited for this date and all, but you have to promise that you aren’t a cop.’

I laughed a bit because laughing makes you seem cool, remember that, girls, and I said something along the lines of ‘If I were a cop I would have arrested you by now for agreeing to go out with me.’ While that didn’t sound as cool as I wanted it to, it reassured her and she linked her arm through mine and we went off.”  
“You remember this in almost perfect detail,” Asami remarks, smiling at Korra who nods.

“Of course I do! It was the first night of the rest of my life.”

Asami blushes a bit and Korra resumes the story. “We went to this place downtown that sold good food, just regular stuff like burgers and fries. Nothing really remarkable happened until after we ate.”

“I wanted to show Korra the riverside since it was one of my favourite places in the city.” Asami explains “We got a loaf of bread at a grocery store and walked along the river feeding the ducks. After walking for a while we reached a bridge and took a seat under it.”

“We talked about our lives so far, and where we saw them going. Stuff like that. It was strangely intense like I had talked about that stuff with people before but with Asami, there was this sort of… energy in the air. Like she was really listening, not just putting up with me. Then, one thing led to another and we kissed.”

The girls let out a little “Aww” at that, but then Asami looks at them and shakes her head. “Well, it sounds really cute and sweet and all that, but we had forgotten to look around before we did it and we were caught by the police.”

“While we couldn’t actually get arrested for it, we weren’t technically supposed to be kissing. Gossip could be thrown around about us, or the police could notify our employers and we’d lose our jobs. At least, I would. Asami would probably lose all her business deals, it was hard enough for her already since lots of people didn’t think women were fit to run a company. But we were lucky, if we were male we would probably have gone to jail,” Korra says.

“The officer asked us what we were doing, and of course the story we came up with before wouldn’t explain why we were kissing so Korra was forced to make something up,” Asami says with a fond smile “She told him this long story about how I was new to the city and had run into some shady business with a gang. According to Korra, the gang leader wanted me to carry his child, but I had to be left… untouched… or he would find someone else. I didn’t want to have his child so I had to find a way to make it seem like I had…” with this she looks at Korra and raises an eyebrow, wondering how to phrase it.

“Hooked up with someone before,” Korra takes over, “I told him that Asami was a devout Catholic and since according to the bible she wasn’t supposed to… er… ‘Hookup’ with a man before marriage she asked me to help her since in the bible it only mentioned two men being together so technically it wasn’t a sin.”

Asami laughs “Oh course, it was all made up. None of us were actually practising Christians so we had no idea what the bible actually said about those kinds of things, it was probably all inaccurate. But the officer seemed to believe us, or at least he was confused enough that he decided to leave us alone.”

“It also helped that Asami gave him a bunch of money to keep his mouth shut,” Korra says, laughing. 

The girls are a bit confused, but they smile and laugh along with Korra and Asami for a while before they start to yawn. Korra collects their cups as Asami tucks the girls in and kisses the goodnight. They then turn off the light and go downstairs. 

Korra puts the cups in the sink and notices Asami playing around with the radio. “What’s that?” She asks once the cups are out of her hands. Asami looks up and smiles “Your story made me nostalgic, I’m looking for an oldies station.”

After a while she finds one and Asami stands up, grabbing Korra’s hands. The song is fast and upbeat and it takes the two a while to fall into rhythm, but they still dance like they used to, albite a bit slower. 

“Our grandkids are pretty great, huh?” Korra says as she’s spun around by Asami. She lands back in her arms and Asami nods.

“Our kid too. I think we’ve done well.”

Korra grins and falls back into the dance for a while. While dancing barefoot in the middle of a kitchen is quite different than dancing in her old clothes at a bar the music is the same and she has the same partner. It feels safe and familiar and Korra realises that she has only danced with one person for almost 60 years.

As Asami spins her around again and Korra once again lands in her arms she decides that she doesn’t mind that fact. Not one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Works Cited  
> "1950's Music Decade Overview." 1950's Music Decade Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> Byers, Amber R. "Lesbians and the 1950s · Lesbians in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1999 · Outhistory.org." Omeka RSS. N.p., 2008. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> Foundation, LGBT. "'Gay' in the 1950's." LGBT Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> "History of Lesbianism in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> HR Staff. "Lgbt History Month: The 1950s and the Root of LGBT Politics." N.p., 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> Laura. "Six Ways That 1950s Butches and Femmes F*cked with Society, Were Badass." Autostraddle. N.p., 04 Dec. 2013. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> News, CBC. "TIMELINE | Same-sex Rights in Canada." CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 25 May 2015. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.  
> TheAdvocateMag. "A Glimpse of Gay Pride in the 1950s." Gay News, LGBT Rights, Politics, Entertainment. N.p., 28 June 2014. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.


End file.
